The telephone Adolf Hitler used as he screamed his last desperate instructions as the Russians closed in on him in his bunker has fetched £161,000 at auction.

Originally a black Bakelite phone that was later painted crimson and engraved with Hitler's name, it was found in the Nazi leader's Berlin bunker in 1945 following the regime's defeat.

Having been tipped to sell for £400,000, it eventually went to an anonymous bidder at the auction by Alexander Historical Auctions in Chesapeake City, Maryland.

Hitler's personal red wartime telephone that he used to send millions to their deaths during the Second World War

The Siemens-made rotary telephone, embossed with a swastika and eagle symbol of the Third Reich, was presented to Hitler by officers of the Wehrmacht, Nazi Germany's armed forces, in 1943.

The handset of the phone must be rotated almost 60 degrees before it can be lifted out of its cradle.

This feature kept the handset from shaking loose while being transported.

The phone was used in vehicles and trains as well as the bunker and Hitler's field headquarters.

Russian officers gave the phone to British Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner during a tour of the bunker shortly after Germany's surrender.

It was inherited by Rayner's son who sent it for auction.

A spokesman for Alexander House said of the phone: 'It was arguably the most destructive "weapon" of all time, which sent millions to their deaths.

'It would be impossible to find a more impactful relic than the primary tool used by the most evil man in history.'

Among the last calls made on the phone by Hitler was to order the execution of his brother-in-law- General Hermann Fegelein for treason

The personalised name along with swastika on the red phone that was found in the Fuhrerbunker in May 1945 after Germany surrendered

It was the telephone used by Hitler to demand the deaths of millions of Jews, to scream brutal instruction at generals on the battlefield during World War Two and to order the death of his brother-in-law.

And now the Nazi leader's personal wartime phone is set to fetch over £400,000 when it is sold at auction next month.

The astonishing item, described as 'virtually unequalled in historical importance' was recovered from the 'Fuhrerbunker' deep beneath Berlin.

It was picked up by a British officer who arrived at the hidden shelter shortly after the Nazi leader's suicide in April 1945 as Russian forces approached.

The phone had previously been used by Hitler extensively to shout orders at those running concentration camps as well as his officers battling the war around the world.

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Among the last calls made on the phone was to order the execution of his brother-in-law- General Hermann Fegelein for treason.

Another was to instruct his aides to torch his apartments once he and his wife, Eva Braun had committed suicide.

The phone had previously been used by Hitler extensively to shout orders at those running concentration camps as well as his officers battling the war around the world. Pictured is Hitler in 1935

The phone was recovered by Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner, thought to be one of the first non-Soviet soldiers to enter Berlin following the German surrender.

He was sent by Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery to establish contact with his Russian counterparts in Berlin - and they gifted him the scorched and battered blood red phone.

After the war he brought it back to the UK hidden in a suitcase, but refused to talk about his trophy, which was made by German electronics giant Siemens and is engraved with a swastika and Hitler's name.

He feared he'd be accused of 'looting' - an act British troops had been ordered by their superiors not to carry out under threat of court martial.

So Brigadier Rayner passed the phone on to his son, Ranulf Rayner, before his death in 1977 - and Mr Rayner, himself a retired army major, has now decided to sell it in the hope it is put on display as a reminder of the terrible crimes carried out by the Nazis.

The 82-year-old, who lives in Dawlish, Devon, said: 'This was Hitler's personal instrument of death.

'It is a very sinister piece of equipment, when you think about what it was used for.

'Since the end of the war it has mostly sat in a safe, virtually unannounced. But I'm getting pretty elderly now, and this sort of thing should not be hidden away.

A Russian soldier inside Hitler's bunker after they stormed the shelter in Berlin at the end of the Second World War

A Russian soldier on Eva Braun's personal phone. Brigadier Rayner had been offered this phone but declined to take it

'I hope the buyer is someone who is able to display it, and its story.

'The orders Hitler shouted down the phone's mouthpiece, many of which are recorded in history, are a lesson we should never forget.'

Mr Rayner said the story behind his father, who served as a Brigadier in the Royal Corps of Signals, acquiring the phone was 'spell-binding'.

On May 5, 1945, the day the Germans surrendered, Brig. Rayner, part of 21st Army Group, was sent by Field Marshal 'Monty' Montgomery, its commanding officer, to make contact with the Russians as they secured Berlin.

Brigadier Sir Ralph Rayner, who acquired Hitler's phone in May 1945 when he was the first British officer to on into the Fuhrerbunker after Hitler's death in 1945

Mr Rayner added: 'His mission was not straightforward. On getting back to base he wrote carefully to my mother, because letters were still being censored, telling how his visit to Berlin had been astonishing.

'He said the roads to and from the city had been so pock-marked with deep shell holes and so strewn with fleeing refugees, dead horses, burned out vehicles, fallen trees and tangled telephone wires that his driver had found them almost impossible to negotiate.

'Approaching Berlin, they could see smoke rising everywhere, and locating the shattered remains of the Reich Chancellery, where they hoped to find a Russian army headquarters, proved an even greater nightmare.

'Then, helped by the British interpreter accompanying them, they located the very man they were looking for - his opposite number in immediate charge of Soviet army communications.

'The Russian officer, he said, was most courteous, and once they had arranged for his General to meet the Field Marshal as soon as possible, he offered to show my father the Fuhrerbunker, which the Russians had discovered only three days earlier within the walls of the Chancellery garden.'

The Fuhrerbunker was an air-raid shelter and part of a subterranean bunker complex constructed in two phases, finally being completed in 1944.

It was the last of the Fuhrer Headquarters used by Hitler during World War II.

Mr Rayner explained: 'The Russian led my father through the bomb cratered Chancellery garden, still tainted, he said, with the pungent smell of burning flesh, then down long flights of concrete stairs into a dank corridor over fifty feet below ground, from which an airtight door led into Hitler's private rooms.

A porcelain Alsatian taken from the bunker is also being auctioned in the sale, and is expected to fetch around £28,000

'First they entered Eva Hitler's bedroom, which, as the Russian indicated, had already been ransacked by a gaggle of Soviet medical corps woman, who had run off brandishing her Paris lingerie.

'This upset my father who disapproved of looting, and when the Russian offered him her personal black telephone as an appropriate trophy, he declined.

'But his resistance was to be short lived for when, subsequently, he was offered the red telephone by Hitler's bed, he accepted, delighting the Russian by saying that his favourite colour was red.

'I remember him returning from Germany, less than a month after Hitler committed suicide, with Hitler's 'hotline' red telephone and a porcelain Alsatian hidden in his suitcase.

'Apart from proudly showing these two war trophies to his immediate family on his return, he didn't mention them again for many years, fearful that Monty would find out.

'It wasn't until Monty died in 1976 that my father relaxed and for a brief moment proudly placed the red telephone for us all to see on his leather-covered desk.'

Shortly before his death Brig. Rayner, who was the Conservative MP for Totnes between 1935 and 1955 and knighted in 1956, gave the phone to his son, who stored it in a safe, and the porcelain Alsatian to his daughter.

The phone is being sold by Alexander Historical Auctions, based in Chesapeake City, Maryland, USA, during a Militaria sale on February 18 and 19.

Brigadier Rayner's son Ranulf Rayner holds the phone, which he is selling at auction later this month

The porcelain Alsatian is also being auctioned in the sale, and is expected to fetch around £28,000.

Auctioneer and owner Bill Panagopulos, 58, said: 'When Mr Rayner first called and described the phone to me, and the story behind it, I almost fell off my chair. It stopped me dead.

'His father was probably the first Brit officer in Berlin, and he brought back something extraordinary.

'While Hitler vehicles, tunics, accessories, tableware, and other personal items are readily available, an item of this importance with such solid provenance will come up probably once in a lifetime.

'We are expecting a lot of worldwide interest, and I can easily see it going for $500,000 (£400,000).

'Personally I would like to see it go on public display somewhere, rather than to a collector. It belongs in a British museum.'